Night Driving
Posted: Wed 12 December, 2007 Filed under: Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 6 Comments »As the nights have drawn in, I’ve found myself repeatedly thinking about driving standards. In particular, with regard to the way people now use their headlights.
When I was younger, and also when I was taking (lots of) driving lessons, I always thought that before you used full (or even dipped) headlights, you first used sidelights only – kind of a “for being seen, not for seeing by” thing. They got used ’til you needed to turn on the headlights/dipped headlights in order to see.
Now though it seems like the majority of people just switch straight to full headlights, without ever really using the sidelights at all. The Highway Code suggests that it should still be done with the sidelights first, then headlights – but it just doesn’t seem to be the done thing any more.
Now when did that start happening Or is it just something I hadn’t noticed until recently?
Overtaking
Posted: Fri 7 September, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Driving, Travel, Weirdness 3 Comments »Over the last few weeks, as I’ve said before, I’ve been doing a lot of driving – commuting between home and Cambridge, roughly 110 miles per day. In that time I’ve also seen a huge dollop of bad driving. I’m not saying I’m a perfect driver – Gawd knows, I’ve made enough mistakes as well in that time. But there’s a couple of things that drive me mental every time I see them, and they both involve overtaking. Just for reference, this is usually done on motorways and dual-carriageways, rather than single-carriageway roads.
First, I don’t get the entire thing of starting an overtaking manoeuvre and then indicating. It drives me potty. OK, it’s slightly better than the tosspot BMW drivers who all appear to have their indicators turned off by default.
Second – and this is the big one – is the people who pull out to overtake, and then either stick at 5mph above whatever vehicle they’re overtaking (and so take forever to do it) or even worse, slow down! Why? What’s the fucking point? Well, except for being the sort of selfish festering bell-end who enjoys blocking up lanes and screwing things up for other road-users, of course.
Amusement
Posted: Fri 10 August, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, BMW Drivers, Cynicism, Driving, Travel 2 Comments »As I’ve said before, if I drive in to work, I have to go on the pox-ridden bit of single-carriageway road on the A11 between Barton Mills and Thetford. If you’ve ever been to the Center Parcs at Elveden Forest, you’ll know the bit of road to which I refer.
Either side of this section is decent fast dual-carriageway road. But this one section is single-carriageway, and slows everything down.
Now, I admit, I do drive fast. In that way I’m totally a “Type A” personality. Couldn’t deny it if I tried. But I only drive fast when I can. If I can’t, then hey ho, I’ll go with whatever speed everything else is going at. And at that level, I’m far more Type B. Go figure. Mr Paradoxical, and all that jazz.
What this means, though, is that when I get to the poxy bit of road, I’ll go with the flow, which normally (well, normal for 6.30/7am on a weekday) amounts to about 40-50mph. Still not bad, so what the hell. However, this enrages the full-on 100% Type A drivers. Yes, you guessed it, I’m talking about BMW drivers. Why are you not surprised?
Today’s example really amused me, though. Mr BMW 5-series had come tanking up behind me, already doing several dodgy overtaking manoeuvres. He then came out and blasted past me, going round a blind curve on the wrong side of the road. Utter, utter tit. (I know, synonymous with “BMW Driver”)
For once, though, the blind curve didn’t knacker him. It was the next overtaking manoeuvre, while he obviously wasn’t being aware of what he was passing. Blasted past four cars, then tried to slam the brakes on in order to get into a gap before the oncoming truck greased the road with BMW oil.
What everyone else saw, though, was that one of those four cars just overtaken was – yes! – a police car, in full regalia. Hi-vis side bars, lights on the top – you know the drill. And so those lights started flashing, the plod pulled out, caught up with Mr BMW, and pulled him in to the next lay-by.
At which point all the other, rather more Type B drivers who’d just accepted that this bit of road is always shit just cruised on past while Mr BMW was sat up, getting a very solid telling off from Mr Plod.
For some reason, my mood is rather good this morning after that. Maybe there’s a connection?
Invisible
Posted: Mon 14 May, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Driving, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness 5 Comments »One thing I did notice this weekend while driving, thanks to the shitty weather, was how certain cars just disappear in particular types of weather. (And yes, yes, I know, every time I do a long drive, I do a post about driving standards – or lack of them – afterwards. Live with it) With road conditions the way they were – heavy rain, lots of water on the road surface – there was a massive amount of spray in the air, and I realised that white and silver cars just disappear in those conditions.
On the way up, I saw the aftermath of an accident where a silver-grey car (unsurprisingly, a BMW) had obviously been driving with no lights on, and another car (amusingly, another BMW) had come up behind it at speed, and just stoved in the entire back end of the car, run straight into it. I’ve no idea about injuries – by the time I went past, it was only the police directing drivers round the wreckage- but it was impressive.
On the return journey, in the really heavy rain and spray, I was amazed by how many people still didn’t have even sidelights on, let alone headlights and/or foglights. Yes, OK, it was daylight – in theory – so lights didn’t need to be on, but the visibility was so bad, it was worth having lights on so you could be seen, even if they weren’t necessary to see. And the majority of the cars with no lights on were – you guessed it – white or silver. And they just disappeared. You be going along, knowing there was something ahead because of the spray, but you couldn’t see the car at all.
At some points, I even used the fog lights – although I had enough of a memory-span to remember they were on, and turn them off when visibility improved again- because the range you could see dropped right down to about 30 feet max. at some points. And still drivers didn’t turn their lights on. Bizarre. I swear I’ll never understand the mentality of some drivers.
Driving Progress
Posted: Mon 14 May, 2007 Filed under: Driving, Getting Organised, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Happily, the drives to and from Manchester this weekend were smooth and problem free, despite the weather being utterly fucking horrible both times. On the way up it was fairly wet, with some semi-heavy rain in parts, but it wasn’t too bad. On the way home, though, it was nothing short of torrential. In fact, it only really cleared up when I got to Cambridge.
Both journeys also involved small traffic jams caused by accidents in the foul weather, (I’m going to write a bit about that later on) and caused delays of about ten to fifteen minutes each time. But I managed both journeys in under four hours. Going up, that four hours was from Cambridge, because I’d chosen the wrong time to try and set off, so it took three quarters of an hour just to get out of the city (which normally takes about ten minutes), but then it was just a smooth journey.
The return leg was the full Manchester – Attleborough run, which TomTom reckoned would be 3hrs 50, and pretty much was – it was four hours dead once I’d stopped off and topped up the car at the end of the journey, which made for pretty good speed.
What did interest/please me, though, was my own endurance, and how I’ve got used to driving without really noticing it. Eighteen months ago, when I’d just passed the test, and we went up to Manchester, I could only manage two hours of driving before seriously needing to take a break. If I’d driven any longer than that, I would’ve been dangerous – that’s only happened once, where I’ve driven too far, and been utterly knackered by the end, to the point that once we did swap over, I just went to sleep in the car for an hour, which is something I do about once every five years.
This weekend, though, I was able to do a four hour stint without a break, and with no serious issues at all. OK, by the time I got home last night I was tired, and had a mental blank for about ten/fifteen minutes when I got in, but that was it, no really lingering effects at all. More importantly, my right foot – which, on that first long journey, ended up being cripplingly painful for the entire weekend- was absolutely fine, no pain at all, even when we then went out for a (roughly) four or five mile walk on the Saturday.
Really, I just find it interesting to see how much I’ve got used to driving – particularly since buying the Mondeo. I’m comfortable in it, which makes a lot of difference when it comes to these things, but also I just don’t find that type of drive stressful at all. Yeah, sure, the roads are full of tosspots (usually driving BMWs) but they don’t worry me at all. I kind of just take tosspotism into consideration.
In fact, I might actually be coming to like driving – which was something I really didn’t see happening, back when I passed. Progress indeed.
Trying to Die
Posted: Fri 30 March, 2007 Filed under: Driving, MOTB, Travel Leave a comment »This morning, due to a work-related fuck-up of epic proportions (which is too depressing and dull to bother going into) I had to drive in to work, in order to get here for 7.30. And for the first time, I really thought I was going to see some idiot die on the roads.
No, not me. And no-one because of me.
I was driving along the single-carriageway section of the A11 around Elveden, which was pretty foggy. On a ‘clear’ section of road – bearing in mind the visibility of maybe a hundred feet at best, although I’d probably reckon on maybe half that – I saw in the mirror the idiot in a Subaru coming belting past the three cars behind me.
Looking forwards, I could see the headlights of a truck coming the other way…
Dickhead did manage to survive – just – because in a distinctly anti-MOTB moment, I slowed down, so he could cut in ahead of me, without splattering himself across the front of a 40-odd ton artic. Of course, in the next gap, he decided to do the same thing again – no idea of mortality, or just how close he’d actually come to being a statistic.
Changing Lanes
Posted: Thu 8 March, 2007 Filed under: Charm School, Cynicism, Driving, Travel 4 Comments »I know, I know, every time I rent a car, I end up having a rant about bad drivers.
And this time is no different, you’ll be pleased to know.
But for once it’s not about those tossers who sit in the middle lane and never fucking move.
No, in this case it’s all based around roadworks. Now I suspect the roadworks is something that most people could rant about – particularly the fact that you can go past entire sets of roadworks and not see one single bloody person is working, or even visible.
But what gets me – unsurprisingly – is certain people’s driving ability. Or lack of.
I just don’t understand the mind-set that comes up when one lane is closed – and signposted as such from a good two miles off – and people still drive right to where the lane is coned off before trying to pull in to the still-open lane. It screws up the traffic flow, and leads to those self-same tailbacks that they’ve just cruised past. Cunts. But of course, that’s not their problem, so long as they’ve managed to get past all the other drivers.
Mind you, it’s bloody funny when some smeghead scrote BMW driver who’s gone roaring past everyone is then blocked entry by all those same drivers…